NYTimes Discovers Online Comedy Videos

Over the past year viewers have turned to a few Web sites for comedy videos — YouTube, FunnyOrDie.com, and others — supplemented by an expanding constellation of smaller sites that offer just a handful of videos at a time.

This evolution, Mr. Reich said, has not only affected how people are watching Web content but also the kinds of content they are looking for on the Web. “Just as when cable started, and there were all of these networks popping up with very cheap and very nonsophisticated content, the same is true of the Internet,” he said. “Our online tastes are still very primal. We tend to watch stuff that’s very candid.”

The low-fidelity, look-at-me aesthetic is one that has played particularly well to the strengths of the comedy short. “When they say that all writers are storytellers, I just laugh at that,” said Matt Besser, a founding member of the Upright Citizens Brigade comedy troupe, who recently started UCBcomedy.com. “A majority of them are, but there’s a lot of writers who write sketch comedy, and a sketch isn’t a joke, and it isn’t a sitcom. I don’t know any really great stories that are three minutes long.”

Sketch comedy “just has its day right now,” he added. “This is sketch’s medium, really.” [NYTimes.com]